The Enchanted April - by Elizabeth Von Arnim (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

The charming, slyly comic novel of romantic longing and transformation that inspired the Oscar-nominated film

Four very different women, looking to escape dreary London for the sunshine of Italy, take up an offer advertised in the Times for a "small medieval Italian Castle on the shores of the Mediterranean to be let furnished for the month of April." As each blossoms in the warmth of the Italian spring, quite unexpected changes occur.

An immediate bestseller upon its first publication, in 1922, The Enchanted April set off a craze for tourism to the Italian Riviera that continues today. Published here to coincide with a contemporary retelling, Enchanted August by Brenda Bowen, it's a witty ensemble piece and the perfect romantic rediscovery for fans of Jess Walter's Beautiful Ruins and Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love as well as of Downton Abbey and the hit movie The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Review Quotes

"This delicious confection will work its magic on all." --Daily Telegraph

"Extraordinarily well-written . . . It is witty, human, often very beautiful." --Punch

"Brims with magic and laughter." --The Guardian

"[One] of the wittiest novels in the English language . . . The ultimate renter's novel: a month in and out of a gorgeous place where extraordinary things happen; then let someone else deal with the plumbing . . . It's a confection, it's a dream, it's a fleeting April romance, but oh, how hard to get this story out of your head. . . . No one can come away from this April without thinking, even for just a moment, that the course of true love, unsmooth as it may run, is certainly worth taking." --Brenda Bowen, author of Enchanted August, from the Introduction

About the Author

Elizabeth von Arnim (1866-1941), a cousin of the writer Katharine Mansfield and a lover of H. G. Wells, wrote more than twenty books. Born in Australia, she spent most of her childhood in England and lived also in Germany, Switzerland, and France. She moved to the United States at the start of World War II and died in Charleston, South Carolina.

Brenda Bowen (introducer) is the author of the novel Enchanted August, a contemporary reimagining of The Enchanted April set in Maine. A former children's book publisher, and now a literary agent, she has written more than forty books under the name Margaret McNamara. She lives in New York.